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1570.1

The Pacific Review, Vol. 10 No. 1 1997: 84-103

A high degree of ambiguity: Hong
° Kong as an international actor after
S 1997

Kim Richard Nossal

Abstract: With the reversion of sovereignty over Hong Kong to China on
1 July 1997, a 'high degree of autonomy' has been promised for the new
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR). An important test
of this autonomy will be the degree to which the HKSAR government is
allowed to maintain the wide range of international contacts and activities
enjoyed by its colonial predecessor. For Hong Kong is arguably one of the
most active non-central governments operating in the international system
in the 1990s. It engages in a wide range of international diplomacy and t ^
is a member of more international organizations than any other non- | a.
sovereign government. If the government in Beijing and the HKSAR govem-

_ n

a

^

o

ment maintain that degree of activism in the international community, it 'J

will be a concrete indication of China's attachment to the 'one country, two .- ^

systems' formula. This paper examines Hong Kong's international role as 3

the territory reverts to Chinese sovereignty. It does so by looking at Hong - ^

Kong's international activities from the perspective of the burgeoning T 3

literature on non-central governments. Exploring the constitutional and ^ -_

political basis for Hong Kong maintaining its international role, it shows i -d

that the constitutional conditions for such a role are met. However, the 'r, ^

paper also argues that these international linkages will pose a tempting target I 1 ^r

for politicization, and this, more than anything else, will put those activities 3" g

at risk. Although there are substantial differences between Canada and 2 r)

China, lessons from the Canadian experience suggest that the way to ensure <^ ^

that Hong Kong continues to be enmeshed in the international system is > r^
to maintain a high degree of ambiguity about the HKSAR's international *

relations.

Keywords: Hong Kong (foreign relations); China (foreign relations);
non-central governments; Canada-Quebec (foreign relations).

Kim Richard Nossal is professor of political science, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada.

Address: Department of Political Science, McMaster University, Hamilton. Ontario. L8S
4M4. Canada

© Routledge 1997 0951-2748

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Prof. K. R. Nossal

Hong Kong as an international actor after 1997 85

Introduction

Hong Kong is an unusual and highly anomalous international actor. On
the one hand, it has always been a dependent and non-sovereign player
in international affairs: after its seizure from China and absorption into
the British Empire in 1842, it was under the sovereignty of the United
Kingdom until its retrocession to the People's Republic of China (PRC)
on 1 July 1997. On the other hand, Hong Kong has had an extraordinarily
high international profile for a government of a subordinate territory. Not
only does the Hong Kong government maintain relations with a wide
range of foreign governments, but it is also a member of a number of
international organizations. Moreover, the territory has a high regional
profile, taking an active part in a number of organizations in the Asia-
Pacific. Even the most cursory of surveys of the international activities of
the world's non-sovereign governments reveals that the range of Hong
Kong's international activities is unmatched in the contemporary interna-
tional system.

This international activity has considerable pohtical importance for the
reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty. The international activ-
ities of the new government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative
Region (HKSAR) after 1997 will provide an important test of the 'high
degree of autonomy' that is promised by both the Joint Declaration of
1984 and the Basic Law of 1990.

First. Hong Kong's international profile after 1997 will reveal - if only
partially - whether the new HKSAR government is indeed willing to
pursue an autonomous line in international matters. The view will be
partial, for determining autonomy and independence is a difficult task.
On the one hand, there are those inchned to the view that the acid test
of autonomy is whether the HKSAR government is willing and able to
cross Beijing: if Tung Chee-hwa, the HKSAR's first chief executive, inter-
prets Hong Kong's interests in a way that is diametrically opposed to the
interpretation of the Central People's Government (CPG), seeks to pursue
those preferences over Beijing's objections - and survives to do it again
on another issue - then indeed we can readily see both autonomy and
independence. But on the other hand, what if on a policy matter the pref-
erences of the chief executive and the HKSAR government accord with
those of Beijing? Or what if the chief executive calculates (in a manner
not all that different from the daily calculations of foreign pohcy deci-
sion-makers of smaller countries dealing with great powers) that the fight,
if fought, will result in a loss, and therefore not worth fighting? In such
cases, must we necessarily deny, ipso facto. Hong Kong's autonomy and
independence? It is not readily apparent that we should do so - at least
not without clear evidence that the governing apparatus established in the
transition is an elaborate exercise in puppetry.

Second, Hong Kong's international activities after 1997 will also reveal
how far the government in Beijing is committed to the autonomy of Hong

86 Kim Richard Nossal

Kong and to the experiment of 'one country, two systems'. The HKSAR
government's interational operations will be a constant source of concern
to the CPG, no matter how carefully the former tries to tread: because
operating in the international system involves linkages with other sover-
eign governments, those linkages always have the capacity to become
political, as the CPG's sensitivity to anything that remotely smacked of
'internationalization' by other countries in the pre-1997 period suggests
(Segal 1993: 118-9; Costa 1993; Tanigaki 1994; Nossal forthcoming).

Finally, as Yahuda (1996: 131^) reminds us. Hong Kong's international
profile will be watched closely by other countries in the international
system, and will be used to measure 'the degree of autonomy that the
HKSAR will be allowed to exercise in practice'. Those countries which
have deep economic and geopohtical interests in what happens to Hong
Kong - the United States and Japan in particular - will draw important
conclusions from how the HKSAR government behaves internationally,
and what kind of international profile it is maintaining after 1997.

In short, Hong Kong's international activities in the post-1997 period
carry considerable importance. Given this, it is perhaps not surprising that
a number of scholars have sought to try to characterize Hong Kong's inter-
national status, in part seeking to extrapolate Hong Kong's international
status as part of China after 1997 from practice as a dependent British
territory prior to 1997. For example, Roda Mushkat (1992) has argued
that Hong Kong has developed an international legal 'personality' that is
grounded in both international law and international practice, a 'person-
aUty' that can (and, she argues, should) extend past 1 July 1997. Likewise,
James T.H. Tang (1993) has argued that Hong Kong displays some of the
key attributes of an independent state in the contemporary international
system. Tang reverses the observation of Jackson and Rosberg (1982; also
Jackson 1990) that many states in the international system have juridical
sovereignty (i.e. they are recognized as sovereign by the international
community), but have httle empirical sovereignty (i.e. they have little
capacity for independent action or providing security for their peoples).
Tang argues that Hong Kong might have no juridical sovereignty, but it
did enjoy a great deal of empirical sovereignty under British rule.

However, much of the discussion about Hong Kong's international status
and international identity proceeds as though Hong Kong is sui generis in
global politics. It is true that one can argue that Hong Kong enjoys an
extraordinary position in the international community; the range of its
international activities does make it an anomaly. Interestingly, however,
those who look at the territory's international activities rarely see Hong
Kong as an example of what Brian Hocking terms a non-central govern-
ment in international politics (Hocking 1986, 1993b). Such terminology
may be awkward, but it avoids the problems of other formulations, such
as 'sub-national' or 'constituent', the most popular terms. These terms
simply do not capture adequately those parts of a community that do not

Hong Kong as an international actor after 1997 87

conceive of themselves as a subordinate part of a larger 'nation' but nations
in their own right (such as Quebec in the Canadian federation or Catalonia
in Spain), or the international activities of municipal governments, most
of which are creations of higher authorities and thus not 'constituent' in
any meaningful sense.

However, even though Hong Kong is, by this definition, a 'non-central
government' par excellence, students of Hong Kong have tended to avoid
seeing the territory in comparative perspective. There are, for example,
few comparative studies like Enbao Wang's comprehensive comparison
of Hong Kong with other 'autonomous regions' in the international system
(Wang 1995: 89-112). But this aversion to comparative exploration is
particularly noticeable in the case of the territory's international activi-
ties: there has been little effort to use the burgeoning literature on non-
central governments in international politics (e.g. Hocking 1986, 1993a,
1993b: Fry 1989: Jacomy-Millette 1989: Michelmann and Soldatos 1990)
to illuminate Hong Kong's international profile.

But it can be argued that Hong Kong is not unlike countless other
essentially local jurisdictions - from the governments of cities and regions
in unitary systems to the governments of the constituent units in federa-
tions - which have increasingly been prompted to 'go international', as
John Kincaid (1990: 6) has put it. In the process, these governments project
themselves, and their interests, beyond their borders, reaching out into
the global system, and interacting with other governments and peoples.

When this external projection occurs, we get, as Hocking's work shows,
a multilayered diplomacy that enmeshes local, non-central governments
on the one hand and the governments of sovereign states on the other.
Non-central governments and the governments of sovereign states do not
exist in separate worlds, as analysts hke James N. Rosenau (1990) argue.
Rather, they occupy similar, and intersecting, poUtical space. Moreover,
the international activities of non-central governments create a triangular
relationship - between the non-central government, the central govern-
ment, and foreign governments - that in turn creates increased demands
for foreign policy management (MacLean and Nossal 1993). Finally, the
intersection of sovereign and non-central governments invariably chal-
lenge jealously-guarded conceptions of autonomy, rights, and power, adding
a fundamentally political component to that triangular relationship.

Looking at Hong Kong's international activities through the lens of the
literature on non-central governments provides an opportunity to assess
the international component of the 'one country, two systems' experiment.
The purpose of this article is to explore the constitutional and political
basis for Hong Kong maintaining its international role. It will show that
the new HKSAR has a great deal of formal constitutional authority for
an active and engaged international role. It will, however, also argue that
this formal authority must be set in the context of the emerging politics
of relations between the HKSAR and the CPG in Beijing. For Hong

88 Kim Richard Nossal

Kong's international relations will be tightly tied to the broader issue of
whether the CPG will allow the new HKSAR the autonomy to maintain
Hong Kong's capitalist system, or whether Beijing will, in Jan Prybyla's
words, 'muck up' Hong Kong, either by inadvertence (Prybyla 1988: 178),
or by being overwhelmed by the vast differences between the two systems,
and in particular the apparent lack of understanding by CPG officials of
systems of government underwritten by the rule of law (Yahuda 1996:
135-42).

Whether the HKSAR government seeks an international stance that is
truly independent of the interests of the government in Beijing, or whether
it is content to try to maintain a separate 'personality' in international
affairs without ever crossing the CPG, there can be Httle doubt that the
international linkages of the HKSAR government will always pose a
tempting target for politicization, and this, more than anything else, will
put the international activities of the territory at risk. However, drawing
on lessons from the experience of other non-central governments, notably
Canada, I suggest that the way to ensure that Hong Kong continues to
be enmeshed in the international system is to maintain a high degree of
ambiguity about the pohtical components of the HKSAR's international
relations.

Hong Kong's international activities

As Tang (1993: 209-10) rightly points out. Hong Kong's geostrategic loca-
tion has meant that since it was ceded by China to Britain under the so-
called Unequal Treaties, Hong Kong has always been an 'international
actor' - in the sense that international politics has always affected the
territory. However, it was only in the final decades of British rule that
the government of Hong Kong moved to develop a role and status as an
international actor relatively autonomous from the government in London.

Hong Kong's desire to project itself into the international sphere was
given a particular fillip by the decision of the government of the PRC to
adopt an 'Open Door' policy in 1978. In the decade after this decision,
Hong Kong's importance to China's economic development increased
dramatically (Sung 1991; Ash and Kueh 1993). With the evolution of its
own and autonomous conception of economic interests, the Hong Kong
government was, hke so many other non-central governments, moved to
push into the international system.

As a result, like many other non-central governments, the Hong Kong
government maintains a network of international offices in a number
of cities abroad. Permanent Hong Kong missions are maintained in
Geneva, Brussels, London, Washington, New York, San Francisco,
Tokyo, and Toronto. The purpose of these missions is primarily com-
mercial - to promote trade and investment links and to promote
Hong Kong as a tourist destination. But these offices can also have a

Hong Kong as an international actor after 1997 89

political purpose - to push Hong Kong's political interests by lobbying
foreign governments.

Hong Kong government leaders regularly undertook missions abroad
in the pre-1997 period, to "show the flag', and discuss Hong Kong's
concerns with other governments. While international trips by the terri-
tory's leaders had been an increasing feature in the 1980s, the Hong Kong
government made a conscious decision in the wake of the events of 4
June 1989 to increase its international profile. As the chief secretary. Sir
David Ford, put it to the Hong Kong Legislative Council (Legco) in May
1990, the government was undertaking 'substantial efforts to boost local
and international confidence in Hong Kong'. Ford noted that prominent
among these efforts were high-level visits abroad by government officials
(Hong Kong 1989-90, 3 May 1990, 1629-30).

In the eight years between Tiananmen and the reversion in 1997, this
strategy would take numerous Hong Kong officials, particularly the two
governors. Sir David Wilson and Christopher Patten, overseas on a regular
basis (Hong Kong 1990; 1995). Trips to the United States became highly
regular, a function of the annual Washington ritual of deciding whether
to extend Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status for China, discussed below.
But Patten and other members of his administration also paid regular
visits to the other countries which became the primary destinations for
Hong Kong people seeking to emigrate (or secure a foreign passport) -
Canada and Australia (Skeldon 1995).

Like many other non-central governments, Hong Kong also took the
occasional position on matters of 'high policy' during the colonial period.
Tang (1993: 209) notes that in general Hong Kong has been 'passive'
towards international events, 'choosing to devote its energy to the
creation of wealth'. However, it should be noted that Hong Kong was not
hesitant to invoke measures against some of the targets of international
sanctions in the 1980s and 1990s. For example, as Tang notes, economic
sanctions were imposed separately by Hong Kong against Argentina in
1982 following the invasion and occupation of the Falkland Islands. Like
many other non-central governments that invoked sanctions against
apartheid (see Kline 1986: 520; Nossal 1994: ch. 6), in 1986 the Hong Kong
government enacted similar measures against South Africa. In August
1990, Hong Kong imposed sanctions against Iraq following its invasion
and occupation of Kuwait (Hong Kong 1990).

In the case of China, however, the Hong Kong government was active
in discouraging other states from imposing economic sanctions against
Beijing - particularly the withdrawal of MFN status by the United States
- because of the huge collateral damage that would be suffered by the
Hong Kong economy. For example, in 1990, the financial secretary esti-
mated that the loss of MFN would cost between HK$55 billion and HK$78
billion in trade, HK$5 billion in income, and approximately 20,000 jobs
(Hong Kong 1989-90, 30 May 1990, 1666). After Tiananmen, therefore.

90 Kim Richard Nossal

Hong Kong officials made regular pilgrimages to Washington to lobby
members of Congress on the importance on granting MFN renewal;
frequently these trips were made in tandem with the American Chamber
of Commerce in Hong Kong (McGurn 1992: 118-19; Segal 1993: 118-20).
MFN is the one issue that united all of the various factions in pre- 1997
Hong Kong: when they visited Washington in April and May of 1996,
Patten and Martin Lee Chu-ming, leader of the Hong Kong Democratic
Party, had essentially the same message for American legislators {Reuters
News Service 1 May 1996).

In the latter years of colonial rule, Hong Kong was also permitted to
sign agreements with other jurisdictions. Most other non-central govern-
ments are constrained, usually by constitutional provisions, in their nego-
tiations with foreign jurisdictions. In the United States, for example, states
wishing to sign agreements with neighbouring jurisdictions in Canada or
Mexico are technically bound to seek the permission of Congress, as
outlined by Article 1(10) of the United States Constitution; as Kline has
pointed out, however, in reality the cross-border linkages between
American states and neighbouring jurisdictions in Canada and Mexico
have accumulated 'by accretion' and have not reached the agenda of the
national government in Washington (KUne 1986: 518). In the case of
Canadian provinces, there is a constitutional capability to sign agreements
with foreign governments - but only in those areas where the province
has jurisdiction under the Constitution Act of 1867. Hong Kong also has
the ability to negotiate and sign bilateral agreements, and has done so,
most visibly in the area of air services agreements. Hong Kong signed
agreements with a range of other states, including the Netherlands,
Switzerland, Canada, Brunei, France, New Zealand, Malaysia, and, in
October 1995, with the United States. In 1995, Hong Kong also fought
an extended battle with Austraha over fifth-freedom rights, eventually
reaching a compromise that gave QANTAS limited fifth-freedom rights
and Cathay Pacific additional routes to Australia. In addition, as a
signatory of the Multi-Fibre Agreement, Hong Kong holds bilateral
talks with those trading partners which import textiles produced in the
territory. And Hong Kong government participated in international nego-
tiations over the status of the Vietnamese 'boat people' held in Hong
Kong camps.

In one area, however. Hong Kong is indeed sui generis, and that is its
membership in international organizations. In some other cases, non-
central governments have been allowed by their central government to
operate in the diplomatic sphere of international organizations. For
example, in Canada the governments of the provinces are permitted to
attend meetings of the summit of francophone countries that have been
held periodically since 1986. But Hong Kong is one of the few non-central
governments that maintains official membership in a wide variety of inter-
national organizations.

Hong Kong as an International actor after 1997 91

First, while Hong Kong is not a member of the United Nations, it is an
active member of the UN family of organizations, particularly the func-
tional organizations. It is an associate member of the Economic and
Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, one of the regional organi-
zations of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission. It is a
member of the following organizations: the UN Commission on Drugs;
the UN Conference on Trade and Development; the Food and Agriculture
Organization; the International Atomic Energy Agency; the International
Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL); the International Labor
Organization; the International Maritime Organization; the International
Telecommunication Union; the International Telecommunications Satel-
lite Organization (INTELSAT); the Universal Postal Union; the World
Health Organization; and the World Meterological Organization.

Hong Kong is also a member of key international trade and financial
institutions. It belongs to the International Bank for Reconstruction and
Development (the World Bank) and the International Monetary Fund. It
is one of the 35 regional members of the Asian Development Bank ( ADB).
It was a contracting party under the General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade (GATT), and hence the successor World Trade Organization.
Although the Hong Kong government used to participate in GATT nego-
tiations as part of the British delegation, in April 1986 the government
in London sponsored separate membership for Hong Kong - with the
backing of the government of the PRC (Hartland-Thunberg 1990: 101-2;
also Ress 1988: 139).

Over the course of the 1980s and 1990s, the Hong Kong government
developed a high profile in the Asia-Pacific region, and particularly in the
institutions that have developed around the 'Asia-Pacific idea' (Segal 1990:
361-8). As noted above. Hong Kong is one of the regional members of
the ADB, which was formed in 1966, and indeed hosted the ADB's 25th
meeting in 1992. It is also active in the Pacific Economic Cooperation
Conference (PECC), an organization formed in 1980. PECC seeks to bring
together representatives from government, business and the academic
community in consultative meetings and task forces to develop a Pacific
perspective on trade and to facilitate consultation on economic issues
(Higgott et al. 1990: 835). The Hong Kong government attended the 1989
PECC meetings in Auckland. New Zealand, as an observer. In 1990. it
applied for full membership in PECC, and, following acceptance in May
1991, participated as a full member in the 8th PECC meeting held in
Singapore in November 1991. A similar process was also observed with
the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings, launched by
Australia's prime minister. Bob Hawke, in 1989. APEC was a govern-
mental initiative, and Hong Kong was admitted to full membership in
November 1991.

Hong Kong's regional profile cannot be fully understood unless it is
put in a broader context. Hong Kong only gained admission to these

92 Kim Richard Nossal

organizations as part of an effort to broaden the institutional base of Asia-
Pacific organizations to include all of the parts of what has been called
'Greater China' - in other words, the People's Republic of China, Hong
Kong, Taiwan, and Macau. As part of this effort, different formulae have
been found to accommodate membership by both the CPG in Beijing and
the government in Taipei. For example, when the PRC sought to join the
ADB in 1986, an arrangement was made to assuage the government in
Taipei, which had been a charter member of the bank when it was founded
in 1966. Taiwan agreed to continue to participate in the ADB under the
name 'Taipei, China'. Likewise, the PRC agreed to participate in PECC
along with PECC members from Taiwan. Finally, Hong Kong's admission
to APEC was part of a three-way understanding that the PRC and the
government in Taipei would also join at the same time.

In sum, when one examines the range and scope of Hong Kong's inter-
national activities, it is clear that under British sovereignty the territory
enjoyed more formal authority for international action than any other
non-central government in the contemporary international system. The
basis for a continuation of that profile after 1997 is the focus of the next
section.

Beyond 1997: the HKSAR as an international actor

It has been argued that the key determinants of the international activi-
ties of a non-central government are: (i) the constitutional ability of a
non-central government to engage in international activities; (ii) the will-
ingness of the central government to tolerate the international activities
of the non-central government, and: (iii) the willingness of members of
the international community to accept the non-central government as an
international actor (MacLean and Nossal 1993: Nossal 1993). To what
extent do we see these factors in the case of the HKSAR after 1997?

HKSAR ability

There are two aspects of the ability of a non-central government - either
in a unitary or a federal system - to engage in international activities. The
first is the constitutional regime that underwrites the relations between
the central and non-central governments; the second is the political context
of those relations.

The constitutional regime created by the Joint Declaration of 19
December 1984 and the Basic Law of 4 April 1990 (texts in Chan and
Clark 1991) does have some nascent federalist elements. As Harry Harding
(1993: 680-3) has demonstrated, there have been discussions in China
about an evolving federal form ('one country, many governments').
However, it is unlikely that what emerges from the 'one country, two
systems' formula will be truly federalist in nature, if only because to

Hong Kong as an international actor after 1997 93

operate properly, federalism needs a liberal-democratic context, marked
by a willingness of officials at different levels of government to sub-
mit to the rule of law; to share power with one another; and to have
whatever conflicts that might arise between them adjudicated by an
independent judiciary. Such conditions do not appear to be present in
contemporary China.

That having been said, however, under the Joint Declaration and the
Basic Law, the HKSAR is granted constitutional rights to a high degree
of international activity. Certainly no other non-central government has
the constitutional rights of international activity laid down in the foun-
dation documents of the HKSAR.

As part of the right to a 'high degree of autonomy'. Article 3(9) of the
Joint Declaration allows the HKSAR to establish 'mutually beneficial
economic relations with the United Kingdom and other countries'. Article
3(10) declares that 'Using the name "Hong Kong, China", the HKSAR
may on its own maintain and develop economic and cultural relations and
conclude relevant agreements with states, regions and relevant interna-
tional organisations'.

These provisions are spelled out in greater detail in different sections
of the Basic Law of 1990. Article 13 asserts that even though the govern-
ment in Beijing will be responsible for the 'foreign affairs relating to the
Hong Kong Special Administrative Region', the HKSAR is nonetheless
authorized 'to conduct relevant external affairs on its own in accordance
with this Law'. Likewise, Article 62 empowers the government of the
HKSAR 'to conduct external affairs as authorised by the Central People's
Government under this Law'. Article 96 allows the HKSAR to make
'appropriate arrangements with foreign states for reciprocal juridical
assistance'.

In particular, Hong Kong's right to maintain its membership in trade
and other international organizations is enshrined in several articles of
the Basic Law. Article 116 proclaims the HKSAR as a separate customs
territory, and gives Hong Kong the right to 'participate in relevant inter-
national organisations and international trade agreements (including
preferential trade agreements), such as the General Agreement on Tariffs
and Trade and arrangements regarding international trade in textiles" using
the name 'Hong Kong, China'.

Articles 125, 133 and 134 authorize the HKSAR government, again
under the name 'Hong Kong, China' to continue to maintain a shipping
register and to renew or amend air services agreements. Likewise, under
Article 149, non-governmental organizations in Hong Kong are allowed
to participate in international activities using the name 'Hong Kong,
China".

The main section of the Basic Law on foreign relations is Chapter VIL
Articles 150 to 157 enshrine a number of important rights of international
activity for the HKSAR government:

94 Kim Richard Nossal

Article 150: the right to participate directly in negotiations 'at the diplo-
matic lever as part of PRC delegations on issues affecting the Region.

Article 151: the right to 'maintain and develop relations and conclude and
implement agreements with foreign states and regions and relevant
international organisations in the appropriate fields, including the
economic, trade, financial and monetary, shipping, communications,
tourism, cultural, and sports field'.

Article 152: the right to 'participate in international organisations or
conferences in appropriate fields limited to states and affecting the
Region, or may attend in such other capacity as may be permitted by
the Central People's Government . . . and may express their views,
using the name "Hong Kong, China'". This article also asserts that the
central government in Beijing 'shall take necessary steps' to ensure
that the HKSAR will retain 'its status in an appropriate capacity' in
the international organizations of which it had membership prior to
1997.

Articles 153, 154, 155, 156 and 157: these articles deal (respectively) with
the implementation of international agreements; passports; visa aboli-
tion; the right to estabhsh 'official or semi-official economic and trade
missions in foreign countries'; and the establishment of foreign
consulates in the HKSAR.

The articles of the Basic Law focusing on international activities have
been examined in some detail in order to demonstrate that the constitu-
tional regime suggests that the HKSAR government certainly has the
constitutional ability to engage in a wide range of international activities.

CPG willingness

The Joint Declaration and the Basic Law might provide the legal under-
pinning for such activity, but is it likely that the CPG in Beijing will actu-
ally tolerate a high degree of international activity by the HKSAR
government after 1997?

The cynical pessimist might be inclined to dismiss these rights as mere
window-dressing - disingenuous efforts by PRC negotiators in the early
1980s, perhaps, to make the 'one country, two systems' more believable
and palatable to Britain. They might argue that the legal definitions of
the HKSAR's international rights are about as meaningful as the provi-
sions of the constitution of the former Soviet Union, which, as amended
in 1944, gave each of the Soviet republics some of the formal rights of
a sovereign state. Two of them, the Ukrainian SSR and the Byelorussian
SSR, actually exercised these rights, and indeed were given seats as
founding members of the United Nations. But, of course, it was all a
polite fiction: everyone understood that between 1945 and the collapse of
the Soviet Union in 1991, Ukrainian and Byelorussian international

Hong Kong as an international actor after 1997 95

activity was an elaborate facade, a great-power compromise designed
to give the Soviet Union three votes in the UN. Certainly no one ever
expected the delegates from those republics to actually act autonomously,
for all the fine legalisms, separate offices, and distinct flags. Perhaps, the
pessimist might argue, the PRC has comparable expectations for the
HKSAR.

But even if one takes a less cynical perspective, there can be little doubt
that the territory's international activities after 1997 will heavily depend
not so much on the wording of the Basic Law, but rather on the attitudes
and policy of both the CFG and the HKSAR government. And a great
deal of pessimism is expressed about the willingness of the central govern-
ment to permit the HKSAR the autonomy promised (Ress 1988: 151;
Mushkat 1992: 169-70; Tang 1993: 213-14). Likewise, there is equal
pessimism that the HKSAR government will be inclined to take auton-
omous positions in its international activities; instead, there is a fear
that the new HKSAR government will merely accept direction from
Beijing - in other words it will be about as autonomous in its international
relations as the Ukrainians and Byelorussians were from 1945 to 1991.

Given the evolution of Chinese politics in the waning years of the British
period, it is understandable why many have come to pessimistic conclu-
sions about the likelihood that the CFG will allow the new HKSAR
government room for autonomous manoeuvre in the international system;
that the HKSAR will be anything more than a Chinese version of the
Ukrainian SSR. However, an optimistic view should not be ruled out as
utterly naive. If one examines the policies of the FRC towards Hong
Kong's international activities in the pre-1997 period, it can be argued
that the government in Beijing did not seem to be interested in limiting
the international profile of this non-central government. On the contrary:
it was with Beijing's blessing that Hong Kong was sponsored by Britain
for full GATT membership; it was with the approval of the FRC
government that the membership base of both FECC and AFEC was
expanded to include Hong Kong; it has been with Beijing's implicit
approval that Hong Kong has taken an active role in the Asian
Development Bank, and in the 'dialogue' conducted by the Organisation
of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) with the so-called
Dynamic Asian Economies (Hong Kong, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan,
Thailand, and Malaysia).

In fact, as Yahuda (1993a: 151) has noted, the CFG was 'quite flexible'
on the issue of Hong Kong representation - 'as long as their sovereign
claims are not publicly challenged or their claims to speak on behalf of
the people of Hong Kong openly contested'. Thus, while Beijing had little
problem in accepting the membership of Hong Kong and Taiwan in AFEC,
the CFG was less than happy when the United States president. Bill
Clinton, hosted the first summit of AFEC leaders in Seattle in November
1993. Because the appearance of the governor of Hong Kong or the

96 Kim Richard Nossal

president of the Republic of China on Taiwan at Seattle would have threat-
ened Beijing's claim of leadership for all China, the CPG voiced stren-
uous objections, ensuring that both Hong Kong and Taiwan were not
represented at the most senior level (Yahuda 1993b: 696). Likewise, Beijing
was uncompromising in trying to ensure that 'China" speaks with but one
voice in the defence and security area: thus, for example, efforts to include
Taiwanese in the security dialogues that emerged in the Asia-Pacific region
in the mid-1990s were steadfastly resisted by Beijing.

External willingness

Just as it can be argued that there is both constitutional abiUty and CPG
willingness to support a high level of international activity by the HKSAR
after 1997. so too can it be seen that the international community remains
more than wilUng to accord Hong Kong a privileged position enjoyed by
few other non-central governments. It is Ukely that the member states in
international organizations will not move to reduce "Chinese* representa-
tion after 1997, but will move to accommodate as many 'systems' as may
come with that 'one country'".

Likewise, individual members of the international community made it
clear in the pre-1997 period that they were keen to deepen Hong Kong's
links, not only with the international community as a whole through insti-
tutional membership, but also through deepening bilateral linkages. Active
measures such as the US-Hong Kong Policy Act of 1992. steered through
the United States Senate by Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, indicate a
willingness to treat Hong Kong in the spirit of the Joint Declaration and
the Basic Law (United States Congress 1992). Likewise, the Canadian
government of Brian Mulroney pursued an activist poHcy towards Hong
Kong, featuring high-level visits and a variety of confidence-building
measures. The strong public support for the reform package introduced
by Chris Patten in October 1992 voiced by the Australian minister for
foreign affairs, Gareth Evans, demonstrate the concern that some other
countries in the international system will continue to have over political
developments in Hong Kong following the reversion of the territory to
Chinese sovereignty (Nossal, forthcoming).

In short, many of the conditions necessar\' for Hong Kong to continue
to play an active international role in the post-1997 period are in place:
under the Joint Declaration and the Basic Law. the HKSAR has the
constitutional ability to remain one of the world's most active non-central
governments: the CPG has indicated its wilUngness for the HKSAR
government to maintain an international profile; and the international
community has professed itself eager to continue dealing with the terri-
tory as 'Hong Kong, China'. It can be argued, however, that the interna-
tional component of the 'one country, two systems' experiment is likely
to be exceedingly fragile.

Hong Kong as an international actor after 1997 97

Politicizing relations: lessons from Canada

The fragility comes from the ease with which the HKSAR's international
activities can become politicized. One inescapable conclusion of Hocking's
work on the multilayered diplomacy associated with the international
activities of non-central governments is that non-central governments
operate most effectively in the international system when their activities
are exphcitly depoliticized (Hocking 1993b). Put the other way round, the
surest way to prompt a central government to interfere with, or even seek
to terminate, the international activities of one of its non-central govern-
ments - whether in a unitary or federal system - is to endow those activ-
ities with an overtly pohtical content that threatens the sovereignty of the
central government.

Hocking's work on the international activities of non-central govern-
ments suggests that the way to keep non-central governments active and
engaged in the international system is to keep those activities multilay-
ered, to ensure that there is, ironically, a high degree of ambiguity to those
activities. Importantly, the ambiguity must engage not only the non-central
government, but also others in the international community with which
the non-central government is interacting.

The lessons from the Canadian experience are instructive in this regard.
Over the last forty years, all of Canada's provincial governments have
sought to engage in international activities, even though the Canadian
constitution is entirely silent on the issue of the legality of an interna-
tional role for the provinces. Rather, the international activities of
Canada's provincial governments have evolved in the absence of legal
permissions or restrictions; instead the international profiles of Canadian
provinces have been shaped by politics between Ottawa, the provincial
government, and the international community.

But it is only the international activities of the government of Quebec
that have become politicized. Quebec, like most of Canada's other
provinces, maintains a full range of links internationally, propelled into
the international system by the forces of globalization. But in one respect,
Quebec differs profoundly from the other provinces: governments in
Quebec City, whether sovereigntist or federalist in inclination, have consis-
tently sought an autonomous international role for the province as a way
of giving expression to a distinct quehecois identity; no other province
seeks to engage in international activities for such a purpose.

The projection of Quebec onto the world scene over the last thirty years
has generally involved three main participants: the central government in
Ottawa, the non-central government in Quebec City, and the one external
government with an ongoing interest in Quebec, the government of France.
When any one of these governments has proved unwilling to shroud
Quebec's international activities with some ambiguity, the result invari-
ably was an increase in both politicization and conflict.

98 Kim Richard Nossal

In the mid-1960s, for example, the provincial government in Quebec
City decided to test its constitutional prerogatives in external affairs, enun-
ciating a doctrine that in essence claimed that Quebec's international rights
extended to all matters under provincial jurisdiction. At issue was educa-
tion, under the Constitution Act of 1867 a provincial responsibility. Could
Quebec attend international conferences and sign international agree-
ments on education? The federal government, zealous to defend its claim
to be the sovereign representative of all of Canada in the international
system, pressed hard to resist Quebec's claims. Into this fray stepped the
French government of Charles de Gaulle, who engaged in a barely-
concealed effort to encourage the independantiste proclivities of the
government in Quebec City. This took the form of open interference, such
as de Gaulle's sonorous cry of 'Vive le Quebec libre' from the balcony
of Montreal's city hall in 1967 (Girard 1980), or more subtle measures,
such as encouraging Gabon, a former colony of France, to issue an invi-
tation to Quebec to participate in an international conference without
involving or inviting the central government in Ottawa (Schlegel 1992).
Such overt politicization of Quebec's international activities prompted
exceedingly negative reactions from the central government. Two
Canadian prime ministers, Lester B. Pearson and Pierre ElHott Trudeau,
would in turn be prompted to criticize openly the French government
for interference in internal Canadian affairs; relations between Ottawa
and Paris became exceedingly frosty, and the government in Ottawa tried
at every turn to limit the more politicized international activities of
Quebec.

Likewise, in the late 1970s, when the Parti quebecois (PQ) formed the
government in Quebec, and openly sought to politicize its international
activities, there was considerable conflict between the Trudeau govern-
ment in Ottawa and the PQ, with the government in Paris still intrigued
with the Gaullist prospect that the PQ might actually win the referendum
of May 1980 and lead Quebec to independence. Only when the PQ lost
the 1980 referendum did the French government tend to lose interest in
Quebec independence, and relations between Ottawa and Paris warmed
somewhat. However, by the time that Quebeckers were facing a second
sovereignty referendum in October 1995, there was another Gaulhst
government in Paris. The French president, Jacques Chirac, was no less
willing to express enthusiasm for the sovereigntist project in Quebec than
his predecessors. For example, he remarked to a North American televi-
sion audience in the middle of the referendum campaign that of course
France would be the first to recognize an independent Quebec. This inter-
vention once again soured relations between Ottawa and the governments
in Quebec City and Paris.

The anger and sour relations that flared so frequently in the late 1960s,
late 1970s, and mid-1990s can be usefully contrasted to the triangular
relationship in the period from the mid-1980s to 1993-4. For these nine

Hong Kong as an international actor after 1997 99

years, the Ottawa-Quebec-Paris relationship had few of the sharp edges
of the other periods. On the contrary: as a result of changes brought about
by elections, a marked shift in atmospherics occurred. In September 1984,
a Progressive Conservative government under Brian Mulroney was
brought to power in Ottawa; in November 1985, a Liberal government
under Robert Bourrassa was elected in Quebec; and in France, the govern-
ment of Francois Mitterrand clearly had little time for the Gaullist dream
of a separate francophone state in North America. All three governments
sought explicitly to depoliticize Quebec's international activities. From
1985 until the early to mid-1990s - when Mulroney resigned, the federal
Conservatives were defeated in the general elections of October 1993, and
the PQ was returned provincially in the 1994 elections - the Quebec
government was able to operate freely in the international system, indeed
expanding its international operations, without creating problems for
either Ottawa or Paris (Nossal 1997: 325-8).

This marked contrast in approach suggests that it is only when the inter-
national activities of the provinces are overtly politicized that the anger
and opposition of the central government are aroused; by contrast, when
the international activities of the provinces are shrouded in a certain
ambiguity, the international relations of these non-central governments
are smooth and the central government is not inclined to object or
interfere.

Conclusions: a high degree of ambiguity

There are of course significant differences between the cases of Quebec
and Hong Kong. Quebec's relations with the central government in Ottawa
occur within the framework of a liberal-democratic political system; the
HKSAR's relations with the CPG do not occur in a comparable context.
Likewise, Quebec's dealings with Ottawa over international affairs have
evolved in a federal setting, whereas nothing like federalism exists in the
case of Hong Kong. This having been said, however, it bears noting that
in the area of international affairs, the careful legal delineations of the
HKSAR's rights to international activities are much more federal-Uke than
the complete silence in the Canadian constitution on provincial interna-
tional activities.

But despite the differences, the account here suggests some implications
for Hong Kong's international activities after 1997. First, it suggests that
the international profile of the HKSAR should be allowed to develop
with purposeful ambiguity rather than lawyerly precision. Careful and
close analyses of whether Hong Kong is. following Mushkat, an 'interna-
tional legal person', or, following Tang, a 'quasi-state', strip too
much ambiguity away, running the risk of politicizing those relations, and
having the central government close them down as too threatening. No
central government, not even a liberal-democratic government like

100 Kim Richard Nossal

Canada's, takes kindly to threats to its sovereign status, such as having
other states accord one of its non-central governments unwarranted status
internationally.

Second, pessimistic analyses that dismiss the constitutional foundation
of the HKSAR's international activities are also unlikely to be helpful,
since such analyses depend on denying, a priori, both the willingness of
the PRC to live up to the obligations undertaken in the Basic Law, and
the willingness of the HKSAR government to pursue the interests of the
territory autonomously from the CPG. Rather, it can be noted that
the Basic Law provides a legal and constitutional foundation for the
HKSAR to be a wide-ranging actor in international affairs after 1997,
and, if its behaviour prior to 1997 is any indication, the CPG may well
be prepared to live with such international activity, provided that Hong
Kong's international relations are as essentially unpolitical as they were
prior to 1989.

Finally, the lessons of non-central governments elsewhere suggest that
efforts by other states in the international community to 'internationalize'
the Hong Kong question will likely be counter-productive. One does not
need Bueno de Mesquita's forecasting model to predict that active inter-
national interest in Hong Kong after 1997 will have mixed results (Bueno
de Mesquita et al 1996: 100-19); as Tanigaki (1994: 248) and others have
noted, activism by countries like Australia, Canada, and the United States
on Hong Kong's behalf in the pre-1997 period tended to make the CPG
exceedingly nervous. Rather than encourage the flexibility noted by
Yahuda, it is probable that internationalization will produce the same
results in Beijing that French efforts to encourage independantisme in
Quebec City created in Ottawa in the late 1960s, late 1970s, and mid-
1990s. The argument here suggests that if other states are interested in
encouraging and maintaining the international activities of a non-central
government, they must be willing to ensure that the central government
is not discomfitted by the international activities of that non-central
government.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Hong Kong enjoyed an extraordinarily
high degree of autonomy in the contemporary international system for a
non-central government. This is partly because Hong Kong's 'old' central
government, the British government in London, was willing to allow it to
engage in a wide range of activities. But it bears noting that the territory's
'new' central government - the CPG in Beijing - also played an impor-
tant part in fostering Hong Kong's international role, particularly in the
Asia-Pacific context. And Hong Kong was able to play a salient interna-
tional role partly because of the willingness of the international commu-
nity to interact with this non-central government.

The high degree of autonomy that the Hong Kong government has
historically enjoyed in external relations is supposed to remain unchanged
with the reversion of sovereignty to the People's Republic of China.

Hong Kong as an international actor after 1997 101

However, the argument advanced here is that the key factor in the future
HKSAR's international activities will in large measure depend on the
maintenance of a high degree of ambiguity after 1 July 1997.

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of
Canada for its support under research grant 410-95-1085; and to Brian
Hocking, Roda Mushkat, and the anonymous reviewers for helpful
comments and criticizms.

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I St)«!tna CntctiM. Rtn. Ill' Tc-wiio. Caoftda » M iS 1 A I

The Pacific Review, Vol. 10 No. 1 1997: 104-123

The debate on a regional arms
egister in Southeast Asia

Maholm Chalmers

Abstract ASBAN member states are no longer opposed in principle to
military information sharing and the ASEAN Regional Forum (ARF) is
now actively considering ideas for new confidence-building measures in this
area. The first specific transparency measure supported by ARF was the UN
Register of Conventr&nal Arms, whose success in the region has been a
result, at least in part. \)f its flexibility. Because of the limited scope of the
UN Register, debate has\ontinued on the possibility of a regional Register.
As this debate has proceeded, however, it has become apparent that the
creation of such a RegisterVill require a number of complex and difficult
issues to be resolved. WTiat additional data should such a Register include?
\\Tio should be responsible for\)perating such a Register? Which countries
should be included? Because of tfvese difficulties, the prospects of a regional
Register being established in the n6ar future are rather slender. But. as they
become more comfortable with theV;oncept of transparency, there is still
considerable scope for ARF memberV to do more to adopt regional 'best
practice" in their replies to the main UN,^ Register. The Register formula of
framework plus flexibility could also be\ised as a model for the develop-
ment of parallel transparency arrangementVin areas other than arms trans-
fers. The experience of the Register debateVuggest that the development
of concrete confidence-building measures in tne ARF region is likely to be
a gradual process. Progress is possible, but is untimely to transform levels of
national openness on military affairs overnights. The main obstacles to
increased transparency may prove to be domestic and political rather than
international and military: demonstrating once again\the way in which the
confidence-building agenda is linked to broader deba^tes about the neces-
sary political foundations of a secure regional order.

Keywords ASEAN Regional Forum: UN Arms Register: confidence-
building measures; mihtary transparency; South east Asia.

Malcolm Chalmers is a senior lecturer in the Department of Peace Studies at thMJniversity
of Bradford. He is author of Confidence-Building in South-East Asia (Boulder. CO: >\'estview.
1996) and co-author (with Owen Greene) of Taking Stock: the UN Register After mo Years
(Boulder. CO: Westview. 1995). He is a participant in the Council for Security Coopei^ation
in the Asia-Pacific (CSCAP) Working Group on Confidence and Security Building Measures.

Address: Department of Peace Studies. University of Bradford. Bradford BD7 IDP

© Routledae 1997 0931-2748'